Philosophizing the Indefensible: Strategic Political Theory

Shmuel Nili

Sep 2023 · Oxford University Press

About this ebook

Philosophizing the indefensible asks what distinctive contributions political philosophers might make when reflecting on blatant moral failures in public policy - the kinds of failures that philosophers usually dismiss as theoretically un-interesting, even if practically important. This book argues that political philosophers can and should craft “strategic” arguments for public policy reforms, showing how morally urgent reforms can be grounded, for the sake of discussion, even in problematic premises associated with their opponents. The book starts by developing the general contours of this approach - defending its general moral value in a democratic society, and examining how far one might go in strategically deploying dubious or even repugnant premises in debating public affairs. The book then applies strategic theorizing to a set of diverse policy issues. These range from the abortion debate and financial regulation in the United States, through controversies surrounding the participation of Arab parties in Israel's political process, to global issues, such as commercial ties with oil-rich dictatorships, and the bearing of such ties on global climate change.

About the author

Shmuel Nili's work focuses on links between domestic and global injustice, particularly as these relate to corporate agency, corruption, and abuse of power. He has published widely on these themes in multiple leading journals, including articles in Ethics (2019 and 2020), Journal of Political Philosophy, the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Politics. The same themes also dominate Nili's first two books, The People's Duty (Cambridge University Press, 2019), and Integrity, Personal and Political (Oxford University Press, 2020).